To Be A
by ZigzagoonCutie
Summary: A conference for the best of the best goes awry when Clair starts stereotyping. Now a challenge has been presented for leaders of all types-compile a list of what it takes to be a leader of your type.
1. Chapter 1

"And so I need more funds to rebuild my gym on Cinnabar Island," Blaine concluded, sitting back down in his assigned chair. The Gym Leaders and Elite Four members all glanced around the table, wondering if they should approve of the extra funding or not.

"I think we should give Blake his money to rebuild the gym on Cinnabun Island." Cheren facepalmed.

"Alder, that's not his—"

"Aye!" Flannery yelled in agreement. Clair shook her head at the noisy trainers. She was ready for this conference to be over. The five regions' leaders had gotten together four days ago, and it didn't look like they would be leaving anytime soon.

"We haven't opened it for agreement yet," the elder woman told the red-head, pushing her back down in her chair.

"Us Fire-type leaders have to stick together and help each other out, so I want him to get his gym rebuilt," Flannery said, hooking an arm around Blaine. "You Dragon-type leaders are always so bossy!" Clair looked offended.

"Well you Fire-type leaders are always so hot-headed and rash. We don't have a lot of money right now, and you want to spend it on rebuilding a gym, even though he already has a working gym on another island. More important things are present right now, such as rebuilding houses and Pokémon Centers in Vermilion City!" Everyone was silent after Clair's outburst.

"You're being racist!" Chili whined. Cress resisted the urge to bash his head in the nearest wall.

"Chili, it's not racist for her to say something about gym leaders who train a certain type. That would be…?" Cress tried to think of the correct word to use.

"Stereotyping," Cilan supplied helpfully. Cress nodded. Chili pondered for awhile and his brothers exchanged worried glances.

"Well, her stereotypes are wrong." Clair was intrigued by Chili's words, wondering what his views were on the Fire-type leader's stereotypes.

"Oh, then what do you think are the correct stereotypes?" Clair asked. Chili didn't have an answer right away.

"We'll discuss it," said Flint. Flannery nodded.

"We'll tell you guys what it really means to be a Fire-type leader." The four Fire-type leaders present got up and left the room. The others that remained sat in silence.

"So guys," Chili said to the other three with him: Blaine, Flannery, and Flint. "What does it mean to be a Fire-type leader?"

"You have to be cunning," Blaine supplied, "And good at coming up with riddles." Flint and Flannery shook their heads.

"He couldn't come up with a riddle to save his life!"

"She couldn't come up with a riddle to save her life!" Flint and Flannery said at the same time. Blaine chuckled at the youngsters.

"I guess you're right." All four of them put on their metaphorical thinking caps and thought hard.

"Well you have to like the heat!" Chili exclaimed. The other three nodded. That was the most obvious thing they had in common. "And, I bet you like spicy foods!" They thought about it, and then three nods told Chili his assumption was correct.

"I like winning, and I make a big deal of it when I do," Flint said.

"Me too!" exclaimed Flannery, so Chili added that to the list he was keeping on the notepad he normally used to write down orders at the café.

"You have to be awesome," Flannery said, and Chili wrote that down too, because he had to agree, all four of them were pretty awesome.

"My favorite color is red," Blaine said, and that's when they all realized, theirs was too. "My hair used to be red," he added after glancing around at the red-heads surrounding him.

"That can't be a coinky-dink!" Flint exclaimed. They all marveled at the wonders of how world worked.

"Okay, so now that we have done what you have to like to be a Fire-type trainer, we have to put down stuff about how you get there."

"Get a third-degree burn!" shouted Flannery.

"Have you actually done that?" asked Blaine in alarm.

"No," she admitted, "but it sounds badass." They all agreed to that, so Chili put it down.

"Own a Fire-type?" suggested Blaine unhelpfully.

"Well duh! If you didn't then you wouldn't be a Fire-type trainer, now would you?" Chili said sarcastically. Blaine sighed, the youth was right.

"You gotta like blowing shit up!" Flint screeched.

"Amen, brotha," Flannery said in a fake-black accent, high-fiving the man.

"No, you have to blow shit up before you become a Fire-type trainer, you can't just like it. You have to take action, and think on your feet." The way Chili described it, made training Fire-type Pokémon sound much more appealing.

"You have to be good and win in Monopoly," Flannery said.

"What does that have to do with anything?" asked Blaine.

"It makes you awesome!" Flannery shouted, so Chili marked it down, thinking it _did_ make you awesome.

"What else makes us totally _AWESOME_!?" Flint was getting really pumped up.

"We all…" Flannery thought, trying to think up something totally cool, and something that was probably going to end up being a lie, "Sterilize others." She got three weird looks. "What?"

"We _sterilize_ others? How is that a good thing!?" Flannery shrugged, and Chili wrote it down.

"Let's get one more thing and we'll call it good." The others nodded.

"Before you can be a Fire-type leader, you have to," Flint pause to make it dramatic, "breathe fire." Flannery squealed at the coolness of the idea.

"Okay, we're good. And remember, if anyone asks, yes, you did do these things before." They all nodded in agreement and headed back into the meeting room where a bunch of bored looking people were sitting in silence.

"Hey, we're back," Flint announced, "And we've got our list, too!" Some faces brightened up and several people looked eager to hear this list. Chili headed to the front with his fellow Fire-type leaders.

"Okay guys. If you wanna be cool like us, you gotta love the heat; have red hair, like the color red, like winning, and like spicy food." Many people around the room agreed that that sounded like a Fire-type leader all right. "You also have to complete a few tasks first." Now everyone was awake and curious of this. No one knew you had to complete specific tasks.

"I'll take over," Flannery piped up, snatching the notebook from Chili. "You have to of had a third-degree burn, own a Fire-type," Some people giggled and muttered no shit. Flannery glared at them and told them to shut up, before continuing. "You have to blow stuff up, be good at Monopoly, sterilize people, and breathe fire." Immediately several people looked concerned, and they had every right to be.

"Are you serious?" Bugsy asked in child-like wonder. Flannery said 'yup' and the boy looked amazed.

"You sterilize people?" asked Misty. "Oh my god." Murmurs of worry spread around the table. Lance stood up.

"Thank you for that wonderful bout of information. I have learned one thing about Fire-type trainers."

"You only learned _one_ thing!?" Clair shouted in shock.

"Yes." Lance turned to address the trainers. "Have you really done all of those things?" They all nodded, and Lance smiled. "Then what I have learned is correct. You are all liars." This statement immediately caused an uproar.

"Oh hell naw biatch!" Flint shouted, ready to throw a punch. Volkner held him back.

"The only liars here are the Water-type trainers!" Flannery threw in. "Juan always says he's going to get stuff done and never does!" The room got silent. A new challenge had just been created.


	2. Chapter 2

The challenge had been made. Now, could the Water-type trainers rise up and overcome it?

"I always have good reasons why I do not do what I say. Being a Gym Leader, as popular as I am, is hard." Flannery rolled her eyes.

"Oh yeah, what was your excuse last time? Lemme think. Oh, right. 'I had to make dinner for Tate and Liza,' isn't that what you said. I called up Tate and Liza, and guess what? They were eating dinner." Juan looked a little surprised by her follow-up. He had always expected that people would drop the matter when they thought someone was busy.

"Well," Misty said, "I guess it's our turn." The other leaders turned to her. "We'll make our list, and you can see for yourselves that we are honest people." Around the table, many agreed, so five Water-type Gym Leaders got up and headed out.

"One, two, three, four… five?" Wallace was confused; he was pretty sure there were six Water-type trainers.

"Where's Marlon?" Cress asked. They looked around and found he wasn't present. Wake headed back in and saw Marlon asleep in his chair. He was woken up by a rough shove and filled in on what they were doing.

"Okay, now we can start," Wallace said, taking the role of leader from Misty. The latter huffed.

"Yes, I'll make the list. She started to pull out a piece of paper, but Cress stopped her, gesturing to the notebook in his hand.

"Allow me." Misty grumbled, upset she wasn't getting to do anything. This made her determined to try and think of the most things to put on their list.

"Well there's our first trait, determined," Wake observed with a hearty laugh. Misty flushed lightly and gave another huff.

"Okay, we, like water, like to go with the flow." They all agreed. It was the first thing that came to mind when you thought of a Water-type trainer.

"We all like swimmin' right?" Marlon asked. Juan looked at Wallace and he shrugged. A little white-lie wouldn't hurt. "And the color blue!" Misty almost spoke up and said that she preferred orange, but then remembered that it would make the list smaller. They needed a nice hearty list.

"Well to name a few things," Wallace started, "I like fashion, seashells, long walks on the beach, classical music, fake eyelashes, cute crocheted animals, pink pens, the second hand of a clock, old history books, painted ceilings, and young boys with red eyes." Everyone was appalled by his list, but Cress was madly scribbling it down, for he too liked several of those things. Juan looked like he was going to say something about that last one, but thought better of it and kept his mouth shut.

"Now since that is done," Wake said, "we need to think of qualifications, like making your own theme song." None of them had done that except Wake, but they could probably make something up on spot if they needed to.

"I know a few," Misty said, knowing it was her time to add to the list, "Swimming with Sharpedos, catching Goldeen with your bare hands, and skinny dipping." Everyone present had done everything on that list surprisingly, so it was written down by Cress.

"You have to stand under a waterfall," Wake said. Even though no one else had done that, it was written down.

"Doesn't Chuck do that?" asked Misty. Wake shrugged, he didn't know what Chuck did in his spare time; he didn't stalk people.

"You have to be able to jump outta the water like a Mantine, 'k?" Marlon said. They all didn't think that was okay, because that was too ambitious for many people, but Cress knew Marlon could do it, so if they were asked to demonstrate, they would be able to.

"You have to have gills," Juan said boldly.

"Do you really have gills?" Misty exclaimed, excited. She had always hoped it would be possible for humans to have gills, because if it were possible, she would be able to be a real mermaid. And then her sex appeal would sky rocket, and Red would be all hers.

"No," Juan said, not seeming to care he had just told a blatant lie. He then shrugged, "No one will be able to tell if we have gills or not, we can tell them they are at our crotch." Misty realized Flannery was right; Juan was a total liar.

"At least seventy percent of your body has to be made of water," Wallace said matter-of-factly. "My doctor told me so." Everyone in the room was stunned by this fact. Seventy percent sounded like a lot.

"Wait…" Cress said, glancing up from his mad scribbling, "Everybody's bodies are made of at least seventy percent of water." The disheartened looks made him almost wish he had never said anything.

"That's okay, we'll say ninety percent," said Juan, picking up the notebook and rewriting the previous statement. That's when Wake realized how right Flannery was.

"I say our list is good," Wallace said before Juan could make up any more lies. "Let's go present it!" The gaggle excitedly hurried inside to give their speech.

"We're back~!" Juan said in a singsong voice. Marlon was surprised he didn't try to lie to everyone and tell them they weren't really there. Flannery was totally right about that guy!

"Oh good, let's hear it," Clair said. For some odd reason, this really fascinated her. Her cousin, Lance, did not share her enthusiasm, however.

Cress cleared his throat. "First, we have the traits we share. We all are determined, go with the flow, like swimming, the color blue, fashion, seashells, long walks on the beach, classical music, fake eyelashes, cute crocheted animals, pink pens, the second hand of a clock, old history books, painted ceilings." Cress paused to take a breath and noticed the smaller writing. It looked like he forgot something. "And young boys with red eyes." He blushed after realizing what he just said, and Chili beamed proudly at him.

"I always knew you liked me better, bro!" Chili exclaimed. Cress blushed harder. Norman looked a little more than angry.

"Would you like to repeat that last one?" Norman asked in a threatening tone. He wasn't even looking at Cress—he was glaring at Wallace. Cress paled. He decided to keep his mouth shut and pass the list to Misty. The girl beamed. She was happy she got to take control, and was oblivious to Norman cracking his fingers. Juan moved closer to Norman and whispered in his ear that Wake had taken a liking to Ruby, Norman's son. Cress then realized what a liar Juan was.

"Before you continue, do you all really like a red-eyed boy?" Bertha asked. The spouted names of the people they knew had red-eyes, and Bertha seemed satisfied. She gestured for them to continue.

"All right," Misty said, once again oblivious to her surroundings. Norman had forcibly drug Wake out of the room for a little chitchat. "To be a Water-type leader, you have to write a theme song, swim with Sharpedos, catch Goldeen barehanded, go skinny dipping, stand under a waterfall, jump like Mantine, have gills, and ninety percent of your body has to be made of water."

"Okay, half that list was utter bullshit," Lance stated. Misty looked alarmed. How could he see through their lies?

"What part?" Juan challenged. Lance looked at Flannery. Maybe she was right about the Water-type leaders being more of liars than the Fire-type ones.

"I want to see your gills. Oh and, if ninety percent of your body was water, then you wouldn't have some of your major organs."

"We are missing some organs—"

"Which ones?"

"Our livers, appendixes, gall bladders, spleens, kidneys, pancreas, large intestines, our right apical lobes of our lungs, our aortas, and a few more." It was at that point when everyone in the room realized just how bad of a liar Juan was.

"You can't live with—"

"Yes you can, we don't really need most of our digestive system—we use diffusion to move nutrients and wastes, and we don't need our lungs because we have gills."

"Speaking of gills, let me see yours." Juan nodded.

"Okay, I just have to take off my pants."

"Eww!" screeched Phoebe. "Please no!" Lance agreed with her on that.

"Don't seriously," Lance said. Clair on the other hand really wanted to see his gills. If people could have gills, could they have horns, tails, or even trunks? "Okay guys, I guess our little contest is over, we know Water-type leaders lie more than Fire-type leaders." Clair was disappointed her cousin wanted to end the contest. She suddenly spoke up.

"Well I just wanted to say, Rock-type leaders don't have fun. They are boring and serious." As Brock bristled, she knew she had started another round. Lance gave her a look that read 'are-you-kidding-me?' and Clair smiled at him. It was time to sit back and watch the show.


	3. Chapter 3

"We're totally the most fun. We can even come up with a list like everyone else to prove how fun we are!" Roxanne said excitedly. She grabbed an unsuspecting Roark and an angry Brock and tugged them out of the room.

"Why do we have to do this?" Roark asked. "Shouldn't we be like civilized adults and let them say what they want about us because we know it's not true."

"Oh, silly naïve Roark. It's because you are a new gym leader," Roxanne patted the boy on the head and whipped a piece of paper from her satchel and a pencil from behind her ear.

"I know the first thing we like," Brock announced. The other two gave him their attention. "Little boys." Roxanne squealed, she enjoyed teaching her little boys and girls at school.

"No," Roark said simply, but it was too late, Roxanne was already writing it down. "I'm sure we all like rocks?"

"That's boring. We're trying to sound fun. How about rock music?" Roxanne didn't wait for a reply before she wrote it down.

"Meowza!" Brock exclaimed. "I've got another one, it's that word! It's like our catchphrase. We like cool exclamatory words like that."

"Good, good," Roxanne wrote it down. She then tapped the pencil to her chin, something she often did when thinking. Roark was tempted to just leave now, but he wanted approval from his peers and knew they would have a lot to teach him, so he wanted to stay on their good side.

"Clashing colors!" Roark exclaimed. He had been looking at their outfits and remembered in high school all the preppy, fun girls wore clashing colors.

"That's perfect!" Roxanne said. She was happy with the progress they were making. "Just a couple more guys. Squeeze 'em out!"

"Innuendos," Brock suggested after Roxanne's previous statement. She nodded in approval, not seeming to realize that it was based on her comment.

"Ooh! I got one, skydiving!" Roxanne said. She wrote it down. "Okay now what makes someone qualified to be a Rock-type Gym Leader?"

"A charge of child rape," Brock immediately said as if it had been on his mind the entire time. Roark pulled a face and Roxanne wasn't sure if she should put it or not. Brock ended up making the decision for her and snatched the pencil and paper to write it down himself in his messy scrawl.

"All righty then!" Roxanne said in her attempt to be fun. It was wearing her out, but if her fellow Rock-type leaders thought she was some preppy girl it might make her reputation better.

"What about having a mining license?" Roark suggested. Roxanne thought for a moment. She didn't think mining sounded like much fun. Roark must have saw her indecision because he quickly said, "A lot of kids go underground to have fun."

"Okay then," Roxanne put it down and realized that it was her turn to contribute. She tried to think of something fun Rock-type trainers would do. "I got it! You have to make jewelry from raw rocks." It seemed the other two approved and she wrote it down.

"Rock climbing!" shouted Brock. It was something he remembered doing as a child often, before he went through puberty anyway. Roark also had fond memories of rock climbing and he thought it was the one thing that they could all agree on.

"Own an Onix," said Roark thoughtfully. Brock and Roxanne agreed because they both had one, well Brock had three.

"What about pet rocks?" Brock asked. He had always kept several around because he got lonely. Sometimes he would pretend it wasn't his hand at night, but one of his pet rocks which he fondly called rock buddies.

"Uh, sure," Roxanne said. She was unsure if that was considered fun or not, but she knew several of the children she taught had them. Roark had outgrown the habit of keeping pet rocks when he was seven; now he kept pet fossils.

"We need something really cool!" Brock said. "I don't care if it's not true or not, we need something that just screams fun!"

"What if you have to kayak up a mountain… with no water," Roark suggested. He wasn't really being serious, but Roxanne seemed to think he was because she wrote it down.

"Ready to report our findings?" she asked. The boys nodded and the trio of Rock-type experts went back into the silent conference room. "Well here's what we came up with!"

"Took you long enough," muttered Lorelei. The Rock-type trainers had taken the longest amount of time. That could be because they did not think of anything ridiculous or crazy… she hoped.

"Here are the things we like," Roark announced, slightly embarrassed for saying this stuff in front of his father, "Little boys, rock music, exclamatory words, clashing colors, innuendos, and skydiving." There were some nods of approval as well as snickers.

"They sound like teenage pedophiles," Morty said. "They like rock music and innuendos, but little boys?"

"Morty, you can't be a teenager and a pedophile," Falkner corrected. "Stop being rude and let them finish. I'm sure Roxanne put the little boys in there because she enjoys their antics." But, little did he know, he was wrong.

"But why not little girls?" Morty asked. Falkner pondered the question for a while and remained silent when he couldn't come up with a good answer.

"Okay! The things that qualify you to become a Rock-type leader are a charge of child rape, mining license, making jewelry, rock climbing, owning an Onix, having a pet rock, and kayaking up a mountain without water."

"Child rape?" Bugsy asked unsure if he should try to get out of there before anything bad happened.

"I think you heard wrong," Whitney said, not wanting Bugsy to be scarred for life. "They said something about wild grapes."

"Oh, thank goodness," Bugsy put a hand over his chest and exhaled deeply. He needed to get his mind out of the gutter!

Norman looked like he was about to bodily remove someone out of the room, namely Brock. Wake still hadn't returned, but everyone was too scared to ask about him. Brock looked proud of his achievements.

Clair began clapping. This was too fun and entertaining, why didn't everyone think the same? It was her goal to get every type to make a list, but no one had realized it yet. She was saving the lists for blackmail later.

"You guys sound like forty-year-old men trying to be hip. If you call yourself fun, then you are sorely wrong. There is nothing fun about any of that. I bet most people in this room haven't done anything on your list." Lance concluded. Clair was disappointed with her cousin. He was always so judgmental. He was the one that didn't know how to have fun.

"Clair, why are you clapping?" asked Koga. He was not used to seeing Clair enjoying herself; normally she was so strict.

"Because people think they can't have fun, have you seen the Electric-type Gym Leaders? They are all talk. I've never seen any of them do anything entertaining. They're always apathetic or too mature for fun." Surge, who was sitting next to Koga, got up abruptly.

"Bitch you're on."


	4. Chapter 4

"Surge, sit down," Elesa said. She didn't want to start this shit, she was perfectly fine being called mature and was sure that Volkner would agree with her.

"But it was a challenge," Surge whined uncharacteristically, "Americans don't back down from a challenge." It seemed they weren't going to make a list and Clair thought she'd have to toss more wood in the fire, that is, until Wattson got up.

"Let's go," He had to drag both Elesa and Volkner, but they made it out the door. Surge followed them. "First up are things that we like."

"I'll be the leader," Surge said. He was a lieutenant after all. He wasn't really used to following orders. "First up are things we like," he repeated.

"Electricity," Elesa suggested. She figured if she named a couple of things, they would be allowed to go back in and continue the meeting. She was going to do everything in her power to ensure there wasn't another challenge being made. Even if that was tying up Clair. At this rate, she was going to miss her next photo shoot.

"Well no shit," Surge said. He brought one hand up and hit his chest with it, the way people do when they mock mentally retarded people.

"Machines," Volkner spoke up. Surge nodded and was going to write it down when he realized they didn't have any paper.

"I'll be back!" he promised. He made a mad dash to the bathroom and entered a stall. He grabbed the roll of toilet paper and then ran back. "I don't have a writing utensil, but I have this for paper." He held up the roll.

"I have some mustard," Wattson dug around in his purse and produced some packets of the nasty yellow substance.

"Okay, that'll work," Surge took the mustard and ripped one open to write.

"You have a purse?" Volkner asked sounding amused. Wattson blushed and poked his index fingers together.

"It's so last year," Elesa bit. She made a mental note to get Wattson a new purse. "We like this year's purses!" Surge rolled his eyes and Wattson grumbled about how he liked last year's better, but that was because he was bitter. No one noticed Volkner add it to the list.

"What about the military?" Surge offered. Elesa wrinkled her nose and the other two's reactions weren't much better. "Ugh, tough crowd. What about… What do we like except electricity?"

"Nothing. That's why we are boring people," Volkner stated. "We should just go back into the room and tell them that. Let them win their argument and maybe this whole challenge thing will go away."

"Psychology, that's a good one!" Surge said. He never backed down from a challenge and that wasn't about to change.

"So we have three?" Wattson asked. Surge nodded. They were the only two who actually cared, so they felt like the burden of coming up with all the ideas were on them.

"What about rodents?" Elesa proposed. She had an Emolga, Surge had a Raichu, and Volkner had a Pachirisu.

"That's good," Surge wrote it down and ripped open another packet of mustard. He hoped it wouldn't smear before he went back into the meeting room.

"Let's move on to qualifications," Wattson said. He knew he wouldn't be able to think of anything that everyone liked. They were honest people and didn't want to make anything up.

"Be shockproof," Surge said right off the bat. None of the other Electric-type leaders were shockproof, but since they wanted to get it over with, they didn't say anything against it.

"Have tricky gym puzzles," Volkner said. His was one of the trickiest out of all of them, but that could be because he spent all day working on it… everyday.

"Have yellow hair?" Elesa advised, remembering the Fire-type leaders had said something similar.

"We can pretend mine used to be yellow," Wattson said. "It was actually brown."

"Close enough," Surge wrote it down.

"Or," Elesa said with a mischievous smile, "We could make it yellow right now." She eyed the mustard packets.

"That's okay," Wattson said not liking where this was going. "I think people will believe it. No one is as old as me anyway."

"Let's put something sexual on the list," Surge said. It seemed like a cool thing to do since everyone was into sex nowadays. He felt a war story coming on.

"Why?" Elesa asked. She thought the list was just fine. She was hoping they were done.

"It's cool, all right," Surge defended. He began to think. He hadn't really had all the much time for sex with the many wars he fought in, so he was relying on someone else to come up with something.

"You have to have _electrifying _orgasms," Volkner suggested. Surge seemed to like it and put it down. Elesa took the list and strutted inside. It was long enough, although it was the shortest so far.

"That was _lightning _fast," Flint joked when they came in. Surge took the list from Elesa to front of the room.

"The things we like are electricity, machines, this year's purses, psychology, and rodents. Qualifications are shockproof, tricky gym puzzles, yellow hair, and electrifying orgasms."

"That was short," Clair said disappointed. "And not that much fun. I guess it was true that you guys aren't much fun." She let out a loud sigh and Surge became angry once more.

"It's not that we aren't fun, we just don't agree on a lot. We have different interests."

"I don't believe that for a minute. Surge is always thinking about the military, Wattson just laughs all the time at everything because he isn't a fun person so he thinks everything is funny, Volkner is apathetic and obsessed with his gym puzzle, and Elesa just cares about fashion. _That_ sounds fun." Many people had to agree with Lance's statements, even Flint who was Volkner's friend.

"Does that mean we won?" Roxanne asked. Clair nodded and Roxanne jumped for joy. She had never won anything before. Clair realized they were trying to wrap the challenges up, and saw Elesa scowling at her. She knew she was going to have to be crafty, or tickle at someone's nerves.

"Even though they lost, the Electric-type leaders seem pretty nice unlike the Steel-type ones," Clair said carefully. She was actually scared of Byron taking her out for her nasty comment and various other people because she started another challenge.

"I'm kind," Steven protested. "So is Jasmine and even Byron."

"Prove it."


End file.
